Thursday, February 16, 2017

Where does the sun go at night?

Today's daf (Bava Basra 25) has a fascinating discussion of where the sun goes at night. The gemara has a dispute between R' Eliezer and R' Yeshoshua.

R' Eliezer says that the world is like a three-walled building; the north side is not covered; The sun travels along the inside of the building during the day. When the sun reaches the northwest corner, it goes above the building (therefore we can't see it, and goes eastward overnight, and rises in the northeast in the morning).

R. Yehoshua says, the world is like a box, the north side is covered;

1. When the sun reaches the northwest corner, it goes (through a window) in back of the box.
2. "Holech El Darom v'Sovev El Tzafon" - the sun (always) travels along the south by day, and circles around the north side by night.

It is absolutely clear that the above is incorrect. We know that the world is not covered by anything and the sun doesn't go behind it. We know that the Earth spins and this is what causes the Sun to rise and set and we know that the Earth revolves around the Sun. These are not theories, they are facts and they are undisputable, we have all seen the pictures from space with our own eyes contradicting this gemara.

The Maharal explains this gemara allegorically. He understands that Chazal hid deeper meanings in statements like these describing the world. However, even according to the Maharal, Chazal did not just make this up, they were describing the world as they knew it, which was mistaken, and through that telling us secrets of Torah.

More importantly, it is clear that this Gemara has to be taken literally for 2 reasons:
1. The gemara in Pesachim brings a similar dispute between the Chachamim and the non-Jews about where the sun goes at night. They were clearly arguing with the non-Jews about reality and not about some deep concept in kabbala as clearly they are not arguing סתרי תורה with non-Jews.
2. The Rishonim when they discuss shitas R' Tam about Tzeis Hakochavim, all bring this gemara down and they all mention the sun going out the window. They clearly held that Chazal were describing reality. as this affects Halacha.

2 comments:

  1. You should hop on over to Rabbi Slifkin's rationalistjudaism.com blog in which he discusses this and many other of your questions.

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  2. I read his blog and understand his position. The bottom line is that he doesn't provide answers to a lot of the questions that I am asking especially the internal ones that I am focusing on.

    More importantly, I answered this in my post Why don't I follow Modern Orthodoxy(MO)/Rationalism/Academics ...?. Here is a short quote from that post (I recommend you read the whole thing):

    I would ask the following question. Do you have any red lines that you will not cross? Is there something that you believe no matter what, namely, mass revelation at Har Sinai?

    If the answer is yes, then in essence they are being hypocritical and inconsistent. The same scientific/academic process that says that the world is billions or years old and that a global flood didn't happen says that a mass revelation at Sinai didn't happen. All of the experts (historians, archeologists, etc.) say that the story of 600,000 men over the age of 20, 2-3 million people in total, leaving Egypt going to Har Sinai and then wandering in the desert for 40 years simply could not have happened based on the archeological and historical evidence. Additionally, all of the experts say that the Torah was not written at the time of Har Sinai but that it was actually written much later by men. You can't believe in science sometimes and then not believe in it when it destroys your worldview. In essence they have no answer to the essential questions of Matan Torah, mass revelation, Torah from God.

    If the answer on the other hand is no, you have no red lines, then what is left if you reject mass revelation at Sinai? If there was no mass revelation, the Torah was not given by God but instead was written by man, then everything is man made.

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